


Tell Me Who Did It (who was the one to betray you?)

by Aya_Diefair



Series: Starkship Enterprise Series [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Deception, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Not Captain America Friendly, PTSD, Referenced Major Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24266104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aya_Diefair/pseuds/Aya_Diefair
Summary: Nebula wanted to help ease Tony's nightmares. She did know firsthand what it felt like to be betrayed, after all. - — Not Captain America Friendly. - — Part of the Starkship Enterprise Series
Relationships: Nebula & Tony Stark
Series: Starkship Enterprise Series [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657543
Kudos: 64
Collections: MC4A Year 3, Monthly Challenges for All





	Tell Me Who Did It (who was the one to betray you?)

**Author's Note:**

> **Author's Note:** So, this story sort of fell out of my brain. Sorrynotsorry? It had been swimming around up there since I wrote _Adopted Brother_ because I always like to think about how a conversation or scenario mentioned in one story would play out in another. Well, this is one of those. Viola! A prequel sorta thingnotreally.
> 
> Buckle up, this is going to be a wild ride.
> 
> All you need to know from _Adopted Brother_ is that Nebula keeps her promise. :)
> 
> (Also, there may or may not be more of these scenarios because why not? Who would want to see how Nebula responds to Rogers when Tony goes off on him in the Compound debriefing thing they were doing? Hmm...)
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
>  **Legal Disclaimer:** My work is my own creative intelligence and property, but I do not own the original source material it stems from (I wouldn't be writing fanfiction if it was). The opinions and interpretations of characters reflected in my stories may not follow what is portrayed from the source material. Please don't sue me, I'm a stay at home mom.
> 
>  **Word Count:** 1,869

* * *

Oh, I know you're feeling insane

Tell me something that I can explain, oh

— Let's Hurt Tonight by OneRepublic

**.oOo.**

**Tell Me Who Did It (who was the one to betray you?)**

Nebula couldn't sleep, which wasn't anything new to her at this point in her life. She thrived off the insomnia, and having Tony for company showed her that she wasn't the only one to revel in such a thing, either. But unlike her, he was only human where she was more cyborg than a luphomoid anymore. Her robotic enhancements allowed her to operate differently than before; from her eating habits, sleeping, even her energy levels. It was what is keeping her from deteriorating from the stresses of space that were slowly consuming Tony. He needed the rest.

She sat in the captain's chair of the Benatar, staring at the dead control panel in front of her, occasionally tinkering around with it in a feeble attempt to restore its power. Nebula hated failure, especially when someone else relied on her, but all she had done was disappoint another person. Even if Tony would never say it to her face, she could see his frustration behind his eyes and laced in his words. He was quick to apologize, to say it isn't her fault, but it was difficult for her to trust these words.

Tony started to stir in his sleep. Nebula could hear him muttering quickly under his breath, so she turned to face where he laid on the lower cot. It looked like he was shivering, and the sweat glistening on his brow wasn't a good sign. She went to Tony's side and knelt front of him, listening to his distressed mutterings for a moment

"Please don't … don't leave me here… alone. Please… Rogers… Howard..."

Nebula placed a hand on his shoulder, feeling his pulse where her thumb rested near his neck, it was beating as quick as a kenga-rabbit running from its predator. The name of the creature was actually muad'dib, a small rodent species that roamed a desert planet she once visited. Tony said it sounded like a mix between a kangaroo mouse and a rabbit when she described creatures from planets she visited with him.

She gave him a gentle shake.

"Tony," she said firmly, "Wake up."

She didn't shake him again, not wanting to startle him. Instead, she gripped his shoulder and repeated his name until his eyes fluttered open. He swallowed hard and tilted his head in Nebula's direction. She pulled a towel from nearby, brushing it over his forehead before abandoning it.

"You are losing your water," she said, offering a canister of their depleting source. "I had to wake you so it'd stop."

"Thanks," Tony muttered, taking the canister.

He only took a single drink off it. Nebula watched as his hands shook slightly as he did so and struggled to close the lid.

"Your nightmares," she said, taking the canister back to seal it. "Someone betrayed you."

Tony shifted to press his back against the wall. The cots space was just tall enough for him to sit up in. He seemed surprised by the comment, but Nebula knew what betrayal looked like—what it felt like. It was one of the reasons why she didn't sleep. She didn't want to relive it like Tony just did.

"How—how'd you know?"

"You said a name…" she paused a moment to recall it. "Rogers Howard. This person has hurt you and betrayed your trust."

She watched as Tony swallowed again, yet he made no notion to respond. Thinking about it now, it probably wasn't the best conversation to wake up to after a nightmare, but she wanted to help ease his mind. Rest should be just that; but if it is littered with nightmares, they take energy, not give it.

"I remember the first time I was betrayed by someone I trusted. My own sister was the culprit for almost all of them, my father for the rest, but it didn't make it hurt any less. Thanos encouraged it, even, so it became a twisted form of endearment after a while," she said, turning her gaze to the floor.

Pulling up her legs and shifting slightly to get comfortable on her own narrow strip of wall behind her, she rested her arms on her knees. "I wasn't always like this. I was fully intact once when the lost fights only resulted in deprivation of something essential. I thought that my sister would never go as far as she did, even when our father knew when we held back, sometimes we could fool him into believing the fight was won the way he expected.

"It was supposed to be my win. My relief of the weeks of torture, the starvation, the suffering. Gamora even told me to go all out. But then morning came and she said something to me that left me burn with a hatred for her I never thought I could only feel for Thanos."

"Why are you telling me this?" Tony asked, interrupting her tangent and pulling her attention back to him. "It sounds very personal, I mean. Don't get me wrong, I'm sorry that even extraterrestrial beings have their share of terrible dad's, I hear you on that one, but… you barely know me, is all."

"I want to tell you it is okay to hate someone you once cared for," Nebula said, raising her robotic arm to examine her fingers. "Or who you're supposed to care for, anyway. Gamora ended up injuring me to the point where a robotic replacement was required. She destroyed my shoulder and elbow to the point where I am still certain that she ripped my entire arm off. I blacked out for days, only to wake with this."

She held her left arm up then, the mechanics clicking some from the motion. "When it is someone you deeply cared for hurts you like that, you never have to forgive them for it. I am not the best example, though."

"Because you still care for your sister?" Tony asked.

"Sometimes you yearn for something so deeply it blurs your feelings for someone. You start to hate yourself for it, but the need to have some semblance of a family, to feel like someone even remotely cares about you even a little, you're desperate enough to always fall for the same lies and deceit they disguise as empty promises when it benefits them." Nebula looked at him with a jerk of her head. "I hope that you don't feel like I've betrayed you, Tony."

Tony shook his head almost immediately. "Never. In my experience, things sometimes just fail no matter how much you try and fix it. Whether it is a high tech spaceship or a relationship."

"Or a machine like me," she added on, turning her gaze to the floor.

A warm hand touched her shoulder then, but Nebula did not look his way. "You are more than a machine, Nebby."

Nebula looked up at Tony then. She felt the corner of her lip twitch slightly in an attempt to mimic the soft smile he had. He seemed to understand her shocked, yet appreciative silence, lacking a proper way to respond to that acknowledgement. The comfortable silence drifted for several minutes. Nebula took the opportunity to offer Tony some rations and the water again.

"Who were they?" she asked, abruptly breaking the silence and almost startled a dozing Tony.

He seemed to know who she was asking about, but feigned ignorance anyway.

"Who?"

"Rogers Howard," she clarified, tone edging on annoyance. "This Rogers person hurt you. How?"

"They're —" Tony cleared his throat, "—Rogers was supposed to be a friend. Steve Rogers. Howard was… well, he claimed to be my father when it suited him."

She picked up the venom in his tone, understanding immediately what he meant and didn't wish to pry in his relationship with his father.

"Rogers was trying to protect his best friend who had been kidnapped and brainwashed by Hydra for eighty-something years. Which is fine and all, I'm all for helping friends get out of a sticky situation they are in, which he went about handling the entire thing the wrong way, in my opinion. Anyway, I found out his friend was framed for an attack that had happened, killing very important people, and we found the real attacker. I went looking for them to tell them to stop running, but Rogers knew something about how my parents died that he kept from me. I ended up finding out the hard way while trying to help them and…" he raised his hands and dropped them again. "Turned out his best friend was the murderer."

Nebula jerked her body slightly into a crouching position, finding the story just as shocking as her own that her body responded to the second-hand fury accordingly.

"I snapped, because who wouldn't in that situation? It didn't matter that I knew he was brainwashed and turned into an assassin, all I saw was red, and all I wanted to do was hurt them both.

"We were in the Siberian mountains, a very cold place on Earth, especially in winter. Rogers and his friend beat me down until my suit was inoperable and left me out in the snow to freeze. Had Friday—my AI—not sent out a silent distress signal as soon as everything went south, and had Rhodey not picked it up almost immediately despite being hospitalized and barely conscious and alert enough to see his phone go off and to send out a rescue team, I'd have froze to death."

"And you trusted that Rhodey would save you?" she asked.

Tony looked her dead in the eye then. "I trust Rhodey with my own life."

She couldn't tear away from his gaze, yet she felt herself deflate some at such an honest declaration. To have someone to trust with one's life and to say it with an unwavering tone with no sign of doubt on one's face to show otherwise. Nebula wished she could have that, even her own guarded trust with her sister wasn't that strong. There were several times when Gamora left her to fend for herself or die, maybe leaving a weapon within a struggling reach to get to that may or may not have helped her. It wasn't unwavering like Tony's was.

"It was the last time I saw Rogers."

"If I ever meet this Steve Rogers, I will break his face."

Tony chuckled some at that. "If he wasn't dusted, then get in line, sister."

Nebula felt herself smiling at the comment. She watched him lay back down, resting an arm over his eyes. "Maybe we can trade; you take Rogers, I'll take on your pops."

"A relatively fair exchange," she said teasingly, knowing that Tony Stark could take on Thanos single handedly if he had to. She's seen it once already.

"Thank you for the talk. It… really helped clear the static out."

Nebula placed a hand on his shoulder, feeling his breathing steadying as sleep started to claim him again. When she was certain that he was asleep, she continued to watch him rest more peacefully. Her fingers squeezed his shoulder gently.

"Anything for you, brother."


End file.
